GlaxoSmithKline to pay $3 billion for health fraud

WASHINGTON (AP) — GlaxoSmithKline LLC will pay $3 billion and plead guilty to promoting two popular drugs for unapproved uses and to failing to disclose important safety information on a third in the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history, the Justice Department said Monday.

Accompanying the criminal case was a civil settlement in which the government said the company’s improper marketing included providing doctors with expensive resort vacations, European hunting trips, high-paid speaking tours and even tickets to a Madonna concert.

The $3 billion combined criminal-civil fine will be the largest penalty ever paid by a drug company, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole said. The corporation also agreed to be monitored by government officials for five years to attempt to ensure the company’s compliance, Cole said.

“Let me be clear, we will not tolerate health care fraud,” Cole told a news conference at the Justice Department. He would not say whether any company executives were under investigation. The company’s guilty plea and sentence have to be approved by a federal court in Massachusetts.

GlaxoSmithKline CEO Sir Andrew Witty expressed regret and said they have learned “from the mistakes that were made.”

“Today brings to resolution difficult, long-standing matters for GSK,” he said in a statement. “Whilst these originate in a different era for the company, they cannot and will not be ignored.”

Crimes and civil violations like those in the GlaxoSmithKline case have been widespread in the pharmaceutical industry and have produced a series of case with hefty fines. One reason some have said the industry regards the fines as simply a cost of doing business is because aggressively promoting drugs to doctors for uses not officially approved — including inducing other doctors to praise the drugs to colleagues at meetings — has quickly turned numerous drugs from mediocre sellers into blockbusters, with more than $1 billion in annual sales.

It is illegal to promote uses for a drug that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration — a practice known as off-label marketing.

Prosecutors said GlaxoSmithKline illegally promoted the drug Paxil for treating depression in children from April 1998 to August 2003, even though the FDA never approved it for anyone under age 18. The corporation also promoted the drug Wellbutrin from January 1999 to December 2003 for weight loss, the treatment of sexual dysfunction, substance addictions and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, although it was only approved for treatment of major depressive disorder.